


Coda

by notmanos



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, destiel for days - Freeform, i should write a sequel about a bbq with the neighbors, it really is beauty and the beast in a way, my response to a terrible ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notmanos/pseuds/notmanos
Summary: Well, that ending was hot garbage. Cas deserved better, Dean deserved better, Eileen deserved better - everyone deserved better. So I entertained myself with this quick little ficlet of what happens if *someone* doesn't die stupidly for no reason.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 20





	Coda

Of course, Sam knew Cas was in love with him. He was a little know it all. And he probably knew Dean loved Cas too, although Dean wasn’t a hundred percent that he was. It could be just their “profound bond” ... oh shit, that was a euphemism, wasn’t it? 

It was now official. He was an idiot.

Dean decided to take a trip, and visit Charlie. No, she wasn’t the “original” Charlie, but she was what they had, and he’d take it, even if she gave him funny looks when he accidentally said something that appealed more to their Charlie than her. 

They had a beer and sat outside, because Dean didn’t want Stevie to come home and hear any of it. He liked her, but it was just ... weird. “Are you seriously asking me if you’re gay?” Charlie asked, looking not just dumbfounded, but slightly pissed off. See, it was weird even with Charlie.

“Well, I don’t know,” Dean said. “I mean, I’m not. I don’t think I am.” Her looked morphed into a frown. “No, I’m not. I know I’m not.”

“You know, the fact that you don’t know is an alternate answer.”

“I know! I like women! I’ve always liked women.”

Charlie cocked her head to the side and studied him, like a certain angel he knew also did. Although usually more drained of emotion. “I’m sensing a “but” here.”

“You’re not, I swear.”

She didn’t seem convinced. “You’ve never found any guy ... kinda cute?”

”No!” Dean took a swallow of his beer, and Charlie was still looking at him with an expression he couldn’t interpret. Maybe somewhere between doubtful and angry. 

“What about Paul Newman?”

“Not fair. He was a great looking guy. Anyone could appreciate that.”

She shrugged. “You may have a point there. What about ... Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine?”

Dean shook his head. “Again, not fair. Do you look at him shirtless and think maybe you’re not gay for a second?”

“Which movie shirtless?”

“First or second. Third he’s too ripped. There comes a point when it’s just not palatable anymore. I think I prefer him mostly in the first.”

Charlie nodded. “So a guy can be too ripped to be found attractive?”

“Yeah, ‘cause -” Dean stopped as he realized what he just said. “Oh shit.”

She made a small noise, like a swallowed laugh. “I don’t think you’re gay, Dean. I think you’re bi or pan. Have you ever noticed you flirt with everything with a pulse?”

“Not everything,” he replied defensively. “Generally humans. And having someone like you is a great survival strategy.” Although he recalled Crowley once telling him he knew he wasn’t straight, simply because he made “friends” everywhere he went.  _ “Who makes friends in fucking Purgatory?” _ But Dean felt Crowley was projecting, because he wasn’t straight. But now, looking back ... oh shit, he didn’t want to ever say Crowley was right about something. But he probably was. 

“Uh huh. But was that always the reason?”

Dean thought about it, and wondered if it was worth it lying to himself. No, probably not. “Mostly.”

She grimaced, but it had more kindness in it. “You being heteroflexible is the least surprising thing about you. As well as the fact that you didn’t seem to know it. How long have you been trying to live up to your Dad’s model of a perfect little soldier? I think it’s time you set that aside and live your life for you for a change.”

It was Dean’s turn to frown. “How do you know about my Dad?”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “You having daddy issues is another one of the least surprising things about you.”

He scowled at her for that, but she just gave him a friendly pat on the back and drank her beer. 

She was right, of course. He knew that’s why he wanted to talk to Charlie about it. No matter what reality she was from, she was smart. 

Dean eventually decided he probably wasn’t a 100 % straight, but you know what? Who cared? He didn’t anymore. Besides, angels had no gender. They had no bodies at all. They were energy beings the size of the Chrysler building, whose real form it was impossible to look at without killing yourself. So, all things considered, he was very lucky Cas was sticking with his Jimmy vessel, even if it was a copy of the real thing. 

Dean wasn’t sure how their relationship would go, exactly, if they even had one. Cas wasn’t pressuring him, and was fine to keep things as they were. But Dean wasn’t fine with that. What he did know was he could be with Cas, and he’d feel more loved than he had ever felt, and that was extraordinary. That wasn’t something he wanted to let go.

Technically, Dean never clarified what his relationship to Cas was, but he never needed to. Sam was smart too, and also, figured out that he and Cas had a thing a while ago, even if that thing was non-specified, and somewhat unknown to both parties. Oh god, he was fucking ridiculous. 

Cas came and went from the bunker as usual - from what Cas had told him, he was helping Jack “clean up Heaven”, which actually sounded like a full redesign, front to back. Cas also told him Jack wanted him to take over with the angels, but he turned that down. Cas didn’t want to be the leader of the angels, even though Dean thought he’d make a great one. Cas told him he didn’t feel like he had a life or a purpose with Heaven anymore. Dean almost asked what he meant by that, but it suddenly occurred to him Cas was here, watching a stupid horror movie with him. Yeah, he had to stop being such a moron.

They kept hunting monsters, but that had faded to an occasional thing. Dean, still trying to figure out how he wanted to live his life now, got a job as a mechanic at a local garage. Maybe he could make some money without stealing it for once. Just like Cas moved into the bunker, Eileen did too, and he and Sam never discussed it. It was a glimpse of normality that was so strange, and so wonderful.

Eventually, he and Cas bought a small house. A real fixer upper, but Dean liked the idea of at least partially building something of his own. It also turned out Cas had great carpentry skills, which he wouldn’t have guessed. But between the two of them, they had it renovated in no time. They left the bunker to Sam and Eileen, and Dean had to admit, having something of his own - their own - was really nice. It wasn’t that he and Sam still didn’t do hunts together, they did, it was simply that they had their own lives now. Sam became a law librarian, which sounded incredibly boring to Dean, but Sam seemed to love it. He would, the nerd. 

Eventually, Sam and EIleen moved out of the bunker, leaving it to Charlie, Stevie, and their friends, younger monster hunters who could use the place as originally intended. Although, demon sightings were at an all time low. According to Cas, it was the way Rowena was running Hell right now. Again, she was better at it than Crowley, which should have been worrying, but somehow it wasn’t. At least, not now. 

No one was shocked when Sam and Eileen got married. Dean asked Cas if he wanted to do something like that, but Cas said he didn’t need a human ceremony to affirm his love for him, but if he wanted to do it, he would. Dean didn’t need that either. But he got him and Cas a couple of matching rings, which they both wore. If someone asked Dean if he was married, he simply said yes. Easier than explaining anything. 

Cas came and went from their house as he always did, doing something for Heaven or simply taking care of rogue angels, who briefly became a problem. They were not down with a new God, and while they couldn’t hurt Jack, they could hurt people if they were so inclined. Cas made sure they weren’t inclined for long. If it was ever local, Dean helped, but for the most part, they were elsewhere. 

One day, a couple of rogue angels dropped by, blaming him (and Sam) for Chuck’s “death”. (They didn’t know if he was physically dead, or it was simply the angels couldn’t find him anymore.) Cas was gone, but as it happened, it didn’t matter. On the wall of their living room was what some of Dean’s work friends assumed was some kind of artistic mural, and because they didn’t know about his secret monster hunter life, he went along with it. But it was a permanent angel dispelling sigil. All Dean had to do was cut his hand and slap the sigil, and those angels got zapped out to the cornfield. It had been Cas’s idea to put it up and make it permanent, on the off chance there was trouble when he wasn’t here. Dean found Cas’s protectiveness annoying - what was he, chopped liver? - but secretly, he thought it was kind of sweet. Cas was always saving his dumb ass, even when he wasn’t here. For what it was worth, as soon as Cas came home, and he found out a couple of them came here, he angrily disappeared, and Dean didn’t see him for hours. When he returned, his hair was mussed, his lip was split, and there was blood on his shirt. It wasn’t Cas’s blood. Dean didn’t ask - he didn’t have to. 

No one was shocked when Sam and Eileen had a baby, but also, no one was shocked when Dean and Cas became the fun Uncles. It was so much easier to be the fun Uncle than parents, which Dean realized he was over. He liked kids, but he’d already raised enough kids. Mostly Sam, but there were Ben and Jack to consider, and honestly, he felt like he was done. He didn’t know if he was any good at it, and he decided he didn’t want to know. He figured he’d failed Jack, and Ben, who would never remember him. But he felt he did kind of okay with Sam, even though he was a kid himself at the time. Still, one for three? Bad odds. 

Angels didn’t age, but Cas subtly aged his exterior to try and match Dean’s, so no one asked questions. The funny thing is, most people had nothing but questions about Cas. Their cover story was he was an artist, and therefore eccentric. People actually seemed willing to believe that. Cas had not thought such a flimsy lie would do, but after a couple of years, he admitted he was astonished how it did. Most people seemed charmed by the thought of a mechanic and an artist, like it was beauty and the beast or something. And, thinking about it, it kind of was. Dean cast himself as the beast, for obvious reasons. Cas strenuously disagreed. 

Cas was not around when Dean had his first heart attack, which happened at work. Although it wasn’t bad as those things went, Cas stormed through the E.R. until he found him. He put all the medical staff to sleep so he could heal him, which seemed overdramatic to Dean. Not that he didn’t appreciate it, but it wasn’t like he was under siege by Leviathans or something. 

Still, Dean got his first sense of his own mortality for the first time in a long time. He never expected to live past forty - or before it, thirty - and here he was, pushing fifty five. He never thought he’d live to see the day. That had to be the upside of your soulmate being your literal guardian angel. But it made Dean aware he had to have a talk with Cas. As much as he hated to say it, Dean told Cas when it was his time to go, he had to let him die. As it was, he felt like he’d dodged a bullet or twelve. He also wondered when he would have actually died were it not for Cas, but he decided he was better off not knowing. 

Cas wasn’t around when Dean died at the ripe old age of fifty nine. Dean had been driving to the mechanic’s shop he now owned, when an SUV ran the red and t-boned the Impala. The car was really built well enough to survive it, but it was the car being shoved up against the brick wall across the way that turned Dean into something resembling ground beef. Not that he knew exactly, or even felt it. All Dean remembered was the fast moving blur out of the corner of his eye, and then a feeling of impact. Beyond that, nothing. 

Until he woke up in Heaven. He was kind of surprised he made it, all things considered, and wasn’t the fact that he’d been in Hell and was kind of demon possessed at one point a recipe for a one way ticket down? But then he recalled those were Chuck’s rules. Jack had clearly changed them. Good thing too, because they were as petty as shit.

He was still looking around at the beautiful sunny day when he heard behind him, “Hello, Dean.”

He turned to find Cas waiting for him. “You knew?” Dean wondered.

Cas shook his head. “If I knew, I would have tried to stop it. I kept myself in the dark.”

  
“Fair.” In a way, he was disappointed Cas had kept his word, but also, he wasn’t. No sense borrowing time when he shouldn’t. 

And Dean finally noticed that old ache in his knee wasn’t acting up anymore, and he was back to his younger self. Well, early thirties, which he felt was his peak appearance years. He was standing in a field that never existed, just up the road from Harvelle’s Roadhouse. He now noticed Cas was back to his younger iteration as well. It took him some time, as when he looked at Cas, he always saw him that way anyway. “Was it a good life?” Cas asked.

Dean smiled, and took his hand. “It was the best.” It was, all things considered. 

And technically, it wasn’t over yet. Having an angel as a soulmate fucking ruled. 


End file.
